Jay Johnson believes 2023 LSU team will go down as one of the best in college baseball history

The 2023 LSU baseball team entered the season with high expectations. The Tigers were the preseason No. 1 team in the country with the country’s two best transfers joining arguably the top player in the country.

Greatness was expected — and greatness was delivered.

LSU won the 2023 Men’s College World Series over Florida with an emphatic 18-4 victory Monday in Game 3 of the finals. The victory marked the seventh national title for the Tigers and first since 2009.

But head coach Jay Johnson thinks his group will be remembered as more than just a great team that ended a 14-year wait for a national title in Baton Rouge, La. He believes the group will go down as one of the best college baseball teams to ever step on a diamond.

“I really believe this will go down in one of the best teams in college baseball history,” said Johnson, who just wrapped up his second season as the team’s head coach. “So consistent in the regular season. I think the SEC Tournament is the only week of the year we had a losing record, if you think about that. Not only one losing week for an entire regular season. 11 wins in the postseason, six of them against SEC teams. And I really believe we played and beat every team, the best team that we could have played along the way throughout the entire tournament at that spot.”

LSU finished the 2023 season with a 54-17 record, 19-10 mark in SEC play and the national championship. During the NCAA Tournament, the team went 12-2 with the four victories when facing elimination.

The team was led by the two-headed monster of Dylan Crews and Paul Skenes, the top two prospects in the 2023 MLB Draft.

Crews won his second straight SEC Player of the Year award, becoming the first player to ever repeat as the award’s winner. He hit .426 on the season with 18 home runs, 16 doubles, 71 walks, 110 hits, 100 runs scored, 70 RBI and a 1.280 OPS.

Skenes, a transfer from Air Force who was one of the nation’s top two-way players last season, focused exclusively on pitching and emerged as the most dominant college right-hander since Stephen Strasburg. He was the SEC Pitcher of the Year, finishing the campaign with a 12-2 record, 1.69 ERA and SEC record 209 strikeouts in just 122.2 innings.

The two stars split the two major Player of the Year awards with Crews winning the Golden Spikes Award and Skenes winning the Dick Howser Trophy.

But they weren’t the only two players who starred for the team. Tommy White — a freshman phenom last year for NC State before transferring to LSU — smashed 24 homers, poked 24 doubles, knocked in 105 RBI and hit .374 on the year. Ty Floyd tied a Men’s College World Series finals record with 17 strikeouts in Game 1 versus Florida.

“I love these guys,” Johnson said. “I’m so proud of them. And they are a worthy champion, if there ever was a worthy champion.”